I started with a criminal record for petty narcotics pos and a 'computer tresspassing' record guaranteeing me unemployment almost everywhere except manual labor. I was also living in a SRO in the worst area you can ever imagine, had no money, huge debt and couldn't even finish university so washed out in the second year due to poverty.

STEP 1 - GET A FUCKING JOB

Any job will do. Some shitty manual labor position is great because then you also get some activity in so you aren't a fat bastard.

Easy jobs to get are landscaping (usually pays under the table cash), construction clean up, warehouse, or whatever you can find on your local Craigslist 'gigs' section. Alternatively there's the dreaded nightshift tech support. Look around for these on CL, or move to somewhere in your country where the jobs are. In Canada this means terribad mining and oilfiend work but it pays like $40/hr and there's nothing else to do up there, perfect for studying.

For me, I got a job at the post office and delivered mail, which meant I got off early and had lot's of time for school. Also consider institutions that will pay you to learn a trade, such as telephone companies and whatever else.

STEP 2 - START SAVING MONEY

Basic income budget rule is 70/20/10

70% of your money goes to rent, food, clothing, your essentials. 20% goes to short term savings, like buying a multi core box with 32G+ ram for compiling programs (we'll get to this later)
10% goes to long term savings, like hookers in Thailand, emergency savings if you're ever laid off, I dunno.

To accomplish this I simply log into online banking after I'm paid and just move 30% of the money out of my account to savings like clockwork to prevent me blowing it on bullshit and impulse garbage.

STEP 3 - GET A CREDIT CARD BUT NEVER GO INTO DEBT

Use this card for everything like groceries, gas whatever. Always, ALWAYS pay off the entire amount at the end of the month. This builds your credit to god like levels. You will need this later when you launch your own startup and need funding.

STEP 4 - TAKE FREE ONLINE SCHOOL

http://www.khanacademy.org/ - retake Grade 11/12 math and make sure you're solid in algorithms and precalculus. They're only a few minute long lectures that's all you need. Physics are also online.

I took 6-3 and a few 6-2 courses, the one's I could do without needing physical access to a lab. You considerably shorten the time it takes to finish these courses from a regular student. I would get off work @ 2pm, make some food and stream a lecture while eating it. Afterwards I'd do the assigned work. Then I'd fuck around with whatever, and do another lecture. Then go hang out with my girl. I did this everyday M-Friday while working. Weekends I took off.

Regular university they split up classes 2x a week or 3x a week, you're doing it 2x a day and will blast through it in less than a few weeks, forget entire semesters. IF YOU DO THE WORK/LABS ASSIGNED, YOU WON'T FORGET THE MATERIAL.

Keep doing this and progress through the courses until you have basically given yourself an undergraduate degree in Eng/CompSci.

STEP 5 - BUILD A PORTFOLIO

Now you have the knowledge, prove it to people. Start a security blog/status.net and write about whatever 0-day hacks you found in the Android source code. Write about game theory, contribute to the Tor project, or just contract yourself out to build websites for clients.

In my case I would modify AOSP for security, build it with SEandroid and sold my own devices. This is where your multi core 32G+ Ram box comes in handy because building AOSP takes forever otherwise. I created ultra secure handsets and sold them on craigslist probably to drug dealers, but nevertheless no longer needed to do my old job anymore.

STEP 6 - EITHER GET A $70k+ ENTRY JOB CODING WITH YOUR PORTFOLIO AND SKILLZ, OR START YOUR OWN COMPANY

The problem with coding F/T for a startup is that they will overwork you to death to push out their release and often never pay any overtime or extra benefits. You also have to do fucking queer team bulding corporate society faggot tree. Possibly, MAYBE if the company is bought out you may see some share profits but unlikely. More likely they will buy the company, screw you and move the coding to India or Ireland or somewhere else leaving you unemployed. You'll also have to contribute serious time to some other guy's project so he can make millions. If you're going to work that much, be your own boss.

If you want to startup your own company this is where your platinum credit rating comes in handy. Nobody will turn you down for funding. Startup any bullshit cloud application or anything to do with the medical/heath industry such as adapting CryptDB to a product that can be used for medical offices or other sensitive data. Build it up and shop it for a takeover, you will sell your company quickly.

STEP ???? - PROFIT

Now you have money from your sold startup, saved money from all your work either bulding sites or whatever you decided to do, and a platinum credit rating. You're ready to bankroll your own startup something you can truly 100% own and build from scratch however you want. Maybe you want to bankroll an open source project and don't care about the money because you already have enough from selling your last company. Maybe you want to design and build your own handsets and the operating system that they come with (because the AOSP kernel is fucking ridiculously huge and full of bugs)

Success!

FAQ:
- But I must have a piece of paper from a recognized University!
No coding or startup looking for partners gives a fuck about paper, they care about proof like portfolios and demonstrations. Moxie Marlinspike has zero post secondary and sold his mobile security project to Twitter for a shitload of money, and now even works for them on a contract basis. No paper.

- I want to be a doctor can I do it online for free?
Fuck no obviously. But you can take most of the required courses online for free then go apply directly into second year, once again showing them proof you know what you're doing through demonstration/auditing courses.

- Can I get some sort of certs for all this?
If you must, stanford university offers certs for their online courses. Can always pay for all those bullshit online security certs as well.

The business I started for myself (after I sold the other one) is awesome and I hardly have to work since most of it is automated. I don't do any 'team building events', I don't have to worry about release dealines and dealing with slipshod coworker code, I don't have to answer to anybody (even my customers I don't have to answer to, my software is sold as-is and there's never been any problems, esp no security problems from all the proper coding I learned from 6-3 courses) and the way I've set it up I don't even have to offer customer support since I built it correctly the first time so any idiot can use it.

No reason you can't do this too. Do you have 2 years to spare? Good 2go.

Derp, I also forget the updated course lectures. Look up the course number you want to take, there will be vids on mit site of the most recent 2012 courses just check the course calendar all the links will be there.

If they aren't, check the 2011 links. That's how I did the Network Security 2011 course, a course MIT charges like $12,000 for.

so how was it you "take" 6.3 and 6.2? i see the intro classes have the lectures and assignments which is awesome bc its just like youre taking the classs, but most of the classes in 6.3 and 6.2 dont have lectures or instruction that i can find i dont understand how to learn the material with just the assignments and or tests.

this is reallly exiting but i dont know how to teach myself outside of the few classes that are the "scholar" classes

I commend OP for his success and determination. But let's face it: you have to have--at least--some talent to actually come up with some sort of innovative software design that 1) works and 2) sells. Most people can't even get around the coding part, so everything else is useless. Also, for people that just don't have natural talent for coding, mathematics etc. then clearly this "method" is going to fail after step 5 or so.

Anyway, bump because there might be people out there who will actually profit from this. IN the mean time, I'll stick to my wage slave road (;_;).

Even though I live in a lower-middle class family I still had to work my ass off to make money because that's what my parents did and they didn't raise no fucking leech.

If you're in a tropical state ( Florida in my case) then the premier manual labor job to get here is landscaping. Get a job with your city ( I did and so far it's paying enough for me to cover my gas and food expenses), find a university or college ( they normally pay the most, especially if it's a private college), or if you have the money start your own landscaping service and go to the classiest neighborhood you can find and mow rich old people's yards( there's a FUCKLOAD of rich old people here so bully for me!)

You will get experience, exercise, and more importantly, money! Sure it may not be what you want to do with your life, but it will give you experience and something you can put on a resume.

I've been an English professor and I've been a landscaper, and I would not say that landscaper is worse! Being active is great, also, following the rhythm of day and night (not going to bed at 3AM), and feeling the seasons pass, sleeping soundly coz you got exercise. . . . I'd get up at 5, be doing some labor by 7 AM, get home at different times, take a nap, be fresh for the evening. . . . Sitting on your ass (literally on your buttocks) for half of your life is itself a degraded quality of life.

>>1729Kinda stupid advice.
Not everything you are happy to do would earn you money or would be profitable. Especially if you are trying to not be a poorfag. Shitty and routine job is probably not what would make you happy. You just have to get over it and do what you like in the meantime. Or when you have enough shekels to not give a fuck.

Granted some guy helped him but coding is easy if you take SICP course. All materials are free for it. If you don't like coding do it anyways just to get easy income because thousands of jobs avail. Save your money and go to university to take whatever you want or do your art/music on the side. Nobody is going to help you, you can only help yourself.

More math. We need to take Calculus 18.01 or any single variable calculus course so you learn about differential equations. You will use these to refine code you come across in the wild, the first thing I do is look for differential equations the orig software author didn't solve and solve them. Now I've just optimized the fuck out of the program. http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-01-single-variable-calculus-fall-2006/

I also took 6.005 Elements of Software Construction for Android app building, with scala back ends. http://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/6/ all the lecture notes, reading materials, slides and tests are there for the 2013 class. Probably the best course that exists for "industry" programming though you've already done most of this course in SICP and Scala but lecture notes on version controls, debugging and GUI were awesome.

Congrats you're now a software engineer and you paid $0.00 to get this education, so long as you completed all assignments (the more you code the better) and understood the material. You can get a jr. software dev position anywhere just show them your git or hg repository full of all the software you made for these classes, and shit you made on your own. Starting wages for a zero experience Scala dev is $70/hr

Thanks for the story OP, it's nice to know what's possible. I've been trying to sort my life out for years but just can't manage. You've inspired me to keep trying.

I'm in the UK, can I still use these websites to get certs or should I look for British alternatives? I have a Canadian passport since my mum was a citizen when I was born if that helps.

I've wasted 10 years too, I really need to get something done.

I dunno what the fucks wrong with me, I'm pretty smart but also an idiot. Like I'm really good at picking things up effortlessly; be it sports, music or computers.

The problem is, as soon as I get good at something I just get bored and drop it after a while. Like I went to college at 15 to do IT, it was too easy so I dropped out. I also have done the same with Digital media and I got into uni and wasted my chance at a sound engineering degree.

Same with jobs, I've done web design, programming & administration/security before when I was 16/17. I've done banking and mortgage advisory, worked in PR, done stunt work for films, bar tending/catering, DJ'd in a nightclub for a year & made music.

Now I'm 25 with no qualifications and the most unbelievable erratic CV ever. No one will hire me for shit because it shows that I never do one thing for long. So I'm poor as fuck and annoyed that I can't seem to make anything last.

I have a problem...my best talent is writing (wining some contests included) and communicating with people, I've also worked as a succesful comercial in the middle of a mental illness and I managed to close a contract every day (shit was tought nonetheless). These are my skills but I don't find any course that is related to them in the pages. Do you know some page where I can find any free courses related to this? I don't trust corporated systems of teaching and I'm tired of begging money from my parents.
Plz help an anon to form and be successful

http://www.mysliderule.com/web-devThis is a sequence of courses put together to teach you modern web dev. It concentrates on theory and python/django instead of rails but you can easily learn ruby after you learn python.

http://www.nand2tetris.org/This teaches you modern computer architecture. It was developed by an IRL jew at an Israeli university because too many CS grads he met didn't know anything about computer arch. Prob one of the best courses I've taken, you just need to know some basic programming from any Comp 101 class or SICP book.

http://commonsware.com/For $45, you subscribe for a year to this Android book that teaches everything there is to know about Android.

For Math, I've found the best books are one's done by Sheldon Axler (omg another jew!) both his PreCalculus Book and his book "Linear Algerbrae done right" are the best books I've ever read about math. There is a huge push right now to restructure Math classes in North America since we've never actually been taught math. You spend all of highschool learning pointless Trig calculations you never fully understand. His calculus book actually teaches you what real math is, same with the algebrae book.

>Now you have the knowledge, prove it to >people. Start a security blog/status.net >and write about whatever 0-day hacks you >found in the Android source code. Write >about game theory, contribute to the Tor >project, or just contract yourself out to >build websites for clients.
>In my case I would modify AOSP for >security, build it with SEandroid and sold >my own devices. This is where your multi >core 32G+ Ram box comes in handy because >building AOSP takes forever otherwise. I >created ultra secure handsets and sold >them on craigslist probably to drug >dealers, but nevertheless no longer needed >to do my old job anymore.

Could somebody go into more detail on building a portfolio? Preferably on the AOSP part? I tried Google but couldn't gind anything really except official Android updates

Another important piece of advice: lie to your interviewers. Say that you have more skills than you do (easy to do if it's a techie skill that they don't know), and also (I just thought of this after reading the OP) if you've had long periods of unemployment say you've been doing small time gigs like landscaping, it will make you more employable.

>Freelance work is awful in my opinion as you'll be competing with Indians who'll work for pennies and who know more than you because they spend their whole life writing code just to survive. Ruby and Node.js are in right now though.

Go over anxietybux for me?
In my case I have no income, and yet I am Ph D. says on record that I have got epilepsy and depression mood disorder.

>>2779Nah, because ever since this board began and I saw this post I realized I'm truly just lazy. I'd rather just browse the net aimlessly then work.
I understand that its just me being stubborn but I don't really care enough to do anything about it.

>>2894There's no way in hell I'm ever working with anything related to programming either.
What the hell else could I do, though?
I have a simple job now but it gives me no valuable experience and I have no chance of getting something else. I'd barely get by if I didn't still live with my mom.

Best thread OP
This instant I want to change my dull life
Other than programming, I'd like to be in agriculture because without food, everyone will be starving.

I'd like to move somewhere else but the money will never be enough because of the weak currency. Is there any cheat sheet to become an immigrant that will work and get a job somewhere in first world?
>my country is no war zone, it just corrupted, even it's democracy but it doesn't look like one because cronies
>jobs are filled with other cheaper immigrant labors that locals can't even compete because these immigrants requires lowest wage with high skills

my savings is 500 in my currency and about 113 USD. (it used to be 3 to 1 USD in 2014). No NEET programs here unlike in first world.

tl;dr; Good wage other than programming?
How to move out the country with no money?

>>387I don't know who you are op, but im going to give it a try. I saved the text from this thread like 4 years ago and got lazy from having a decent job and gave up on programming, but im about to kill it and wanted to say thanks

Me and you anon, we're both going to do this. I came across this chan/thread about 2 years ago by chance and it's time to get off my lazy ass and actually DO IT. I started relearning algebra 2 yesterday, once I have it I'm going to learn pre calculus (I did shit at it in high school) and learn to program concurrently. I will report on my progress in 2 years and let you all know what I've accomplished. Thank you OP, to quote /fit/ WE'RE GONNA MAKE IT!

In a job interview for an entry level job like fast food how do I explain a long 8-10 year gap without working? I never got a job because I had horrible anxiety with minor autism and I couldn't deal with the pressure of job interviews. I know this isn't a good excuse but that's the truth. Do I tell them the truth?

>>2970>>2983AS from Sweden here! My career is nothing to be proud of. But Arbetsförmedlingen (the gubmint's employment agency) did good in my case. They partly funded my two most recent jobs and they do look good in the resumé.

And the best thing is that the jobs "laundered" the money from the gubmint. They may be earmarked, but it doesn't show on the resumé.

And this is not to denigrate OP. But if you can get into a make-job program that will look good on your resumé, do it! Think of it as you're getting your tax money back. No disgrace at all.

BUT, there's another big but out there for you autists: Stay the fuck away from retards. I repeat, stay the fuck away from retards. Retard farms will be the undoing of you.

Because I have a buddy that was about to enter a make-job program. It was some menial tasks in a store and he was pretty much the only non-retard at the job. And "the special division" wore special vests wo that the customers could adjust their expectations accordingly.

I predicted that it would fail because he would have to spend time to prove that he was not a retard every time a customer asked him about something. I told him to stay away from it.

Some time later I was proven right. Exactly right. He, as no sane person should, couldn't take it.

His next make-job will be only with fellow autists and not have any customer contact at all. It might work. And I really hope that his resumé looks better or at least not-shittier.

From my personal experience it is best to be honest about your autism. But I guess that it depends on the work. If I applied at some menial job that's basically a foreign legion, then I could be pretty sure that I would not be the only one with issues. Therefore, it's nothing to talk about.